


The Language of Magic

by idontknowwhyimawake



Series: The World of Merlin [5]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Good Morgana (Merlin), M/M, Magic Revealed, Merlin is a Little Shit (Merlin), Morgana is a Little Shit (Merlin), no beta we die like arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontknowwhyimawake/pseuds/idontknowwhyimawake
Summary: The first time Arthur heard Merlin speak the strange words, the two had only known each other for a few weeks. Over the years, Arthur heard Merlin use the words more often, and just came to the conclusion that Merlin was speaking the language that was spoken in Ealdor.Which is why when Arthur finds a book with the weird language in it, he didn’t think twice about picking it up and trying to learn it in order to impress his manservant.
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: The World of Merlin [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033875
Comments: 17
Kudos: 240





	The Language of Magic

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea from something on tumblr. I was kind of exhausted when I wrote this, so sorry for any mistakes I made :)

The first time Arthur heard Merlin speak the strange words the two had only known for a few weeks.

Arthur was still getting used to the raven haired boys sarcastic remarks and the way he would constantly disappear whenever something strange seemed to happen. Oftentimes, that strange thing had sorcery involved, but Arthur just thought Merlin was being a wimp and running away at the first sign of magic.

Merlin had dropped his tray of food and let out what Arthur assumed to be a string of curses. The servant boy had somehow managed to catch the food before all of it went on the floor, but Arthur was still curious as to what the words had meant. He would’ve asked the servant, but he had been distracted by a guard coming into his chamber and telling him his father had requested his presence in the throne room.

He promised himself he would ask Merlin about what language he was speaking later, but he never did.

The second time Arthur heard the boy utter the strange words, he was taking the prince's laundry down to the washing room. The basket that held Arthur clothes would’ve been extremely heavy with the weight of the clothes Arthur trained in, so Arthur was expecting Merlin to complain, or call him a weird insult, but he never did. Instead, he just muttered the strange words and picked up the basket with ease and without complaint.

Arthur was strangely impressed that Merlin was able to carry that heavy of a load without complaint, and had he said it was too heavy Arthur would had called for another servant to assist, but since he never complained Arthur never called for another servant. 

Merlin, of course, complained about plenty of other things, such as Arthur’s stench and the fact that he rarely got a break, but Arthur paid no mind to those complaints. He actually enjoyed hearing Merlin rattle on about his work load.

Merlin sputtered out these strange words from this strange language every now and then, and Arthur took notice that Merlin always seemed to not want to say these words around him. 

That led Arthur to the conclusion that English was not Merlin’s first language, and that an entirely different language was spoken in Ealdor. Yes, he had visited Merlin’s home village once and they all spoke English, but perhaps they were just doing it out of courtesy to the prince. Had he known Ealdor had spoken a different language he would’ve told them to speak in their native language, but he didn’t know at the time.

Once Arthur came to this conclusion, he also strangely came to the conclusion that Merlin was too embarrassed to speak it in front of him, for fear of teasing from the prince. 

Because of that thought, Arthur tried as hard as he could without telling Merlin he knew the truth that he was fine with people speaking a different language in front of him, though he thought that it shouldn’t have needed to be said. Anything to help Merlin feel more comfortable.

Merlin never seemed to catch on to what Arthur meant though, because he still only said the words when he thought Arthur wasn’t paying attention or when Arthur wasn’t around at all (he only knew this because he heard the other servants talking about the language as well).

Only a few months after visiting Ealdor for the first time, Arthur caught Morgana speaking the language too. She, unlike Merlin, mostly spoke the language when somebody had upset her. Everytime she spoke the language openly Arthur would catch Merlin giving her a nervous glance.

Did Merlin truly think speaking another language in Camelot was bad? 

“I just don’t understand why he won’t speak it around me!” Arthur complained to Leon, who was training with his sword.

“Perhaps it is that he is simply shy about it, sire,” Leon said, not even really paying attention to the conversation.

“He is teaching Morgana about it! I caught her speaking it!” Arthur told him.

“Well, they have become rather close,” Leon said. “Maybe she actually out right asked him to teach her, unlike you who just talks about it without even specifying what you’re talking about.”

“I would think it would be obvious,” Arthur said.

“Just ask him to teach you it, sire,” Leon told him.

Arthur huffed. “What if he thinks I’m stupid because I don’t know it?”

Leon raised an eyebrow, “Merlin already thinks you are stupid.”

Arthur frowned. Leon was right, Merlin was constantly criticizing Arthur for the dumb things he did, so he would not truly think that much lesser then Arthur if he didn’t know a simple language.

“You’re right,” Arthur muttered, knowing Leon wasn’t even paying attention. “Thank you, Leon!”

Leon frowned and stopped training. “For what?” He turned around to face Arthur, but the young king was already running back inside the castle. Leon’s frown deepened, trying to remember what he had said to get Arthur to thank him. Eventually he realized that trying to figure it out would be nearly as hard as trying to get Gwaine to stop calling Arthur “princess.”

Arthur slowed to a swift paced walk when he entered the castle and made his way for Gaius’s room, where Merlin would surely be.

He gave a small knock on the door, and Merlin’s annoyed voice answered. “Come in, dollophead.”

“How’d you know it was me?” Arthur questioned.

“I could hear your loud feet,” Merlin said innocently, as if he hadn’t just insulted the king.

“I don’t have loud—” Arthur paused, knowing he would get nowhere with that conversation. “Merlin, I have a question.”

“For me or for Gaius?” Merlin asked, taking a bite out the apple he was holding. An apple that Arthur had thought was supposed to be on his breakfast tray.

“If it was for Gaius I would’ve waited for Gaius to get back, wouldn’t I?” Merlin shrugged, and waited for Arthur to continue. “It has come to my attention that you are teaching Morgana about your home language.”

Merlin frowned. “My home language?” 

Arthur nodded, “do not act stupid with me, Merlin. I have heard you speaking it before.”

“Arthur, I truly have no idea what you are talking about. We speak English in Ealdor,” Merlin said, clearly confused.

“Then what have you been—”

“Merlin!” Gaius said, entering his and Merlin’s chambers. “A family has gotten gravely ill in the lower town. I need your assistance immediately.”

Merlin jumped up from his seat and turned to Arthur, “can we continue this later?”

Arthur gave a brief nod and watched as Gaius and Merlin ran back out of the room to get back to the ill family. That left Arthur standing awkwardly in his manservants chambers, ignoring the fact that Merlin had just walked away from the king of Camelot. He was about to leave the room when something caught his eye.

It was a book sitting on the table close to where Merlin and Gaius worked. Arthur walked towards the book, and realized the surprise that the book was written in a different language. Arthur picked up the book and flipped through the pages, finding that for each sentence there seemed to be a translation for it.

Arthur realized that this was probably the book that Merlin had used to teach Morgana about his language. Surely Morgana was finished with it, right? She seemed very good in what Arthur presumed to be cursing in the language.

If Merlin was truly so nervous about Arthur knowing this language and wouldn’t teach him then Arthur would just teach it himself.

He walked out of the room and headed back to his own chambers. As far as Arthur knew, he had no important matters to attend to today, so he could start learning the language right away. Learning this language would be the perfect way to show Merlin that any and all languages could be spoken in Camelot.

That first night of learning the language was difficult for Arthur. The book failed to provide the simple words like “hello” and “goodbye”. Arthur eventually realized that this language was far too complex to have those simple words. He was up until the moon began to fade, learning other words, such as “fire” “spiders” and oddly “come alive”. The book was certainly difficult to learn from, but Arthur was determined, and if Morgana could do it, then so could he.

“You look like a bird's nest,” Morgana commented the next day when Arthur came for breakfast. “Actually, I take that back. Wouldn’t want to insult the bird that made the nest, now would we?”

“Morgana, at least try to be nicer to him,” Gwen said, but Arthur could hear the stifled laugh coming from her. “We still need him to approve of our courting.”

Arthur tiredly rubbed his face, “you both know I approve of your courtship already, why must I write it down as well?”

Morgana scoffed, “you know as well as we do that the nobles would have a fit unless you approved of it yourself.”

Arthur nodded. He did know this. Until he signed the contract approving of Gwen and Morgana’s courting then there would always be men saying their marriage was never valid, and would constantly be asking for Morgana’s hand in marriage. 

“If you bring the contract by my chambers then I will sign it,” Arthur told his sister.

“And what will you be doing in your chambers?” Morgana asked. “We wouldn’t want to walk in on you during the wrong time.”

Arthur’s face turned red at his sister’s words.

“Morgana,” Gwen chided. “You know he and Merlin would be far too careful for that!”

If it was even possible, Arthur’s face turned an even deeper shade of red. “We aren’t—”

“There you are Arthur!” Merlin’s cheery voice called from across the room. “I’ve been looking for you all morning! You weren’t there when I came with your breakfast tray.”

“You were over an hour late, Merlin,” Arthur said, trying to cover his face. “I got impatient.”

Merlin held a hand over his heart. “How could you possibly get impatient with me? If anything I should be getting impatient with you.”

Morgana smirked at Arthur, “we were actually just speaking of you, Merlin.”

“Oh?” Merlin said, walking over to Gwen’s side. 

Morgana nodded, “yes, we were saying how you and Arthur—”

“Morgana!” Arthur warned.

Morgana huffed and Gwen laughed, leaning into Morgana’s arm. “You’re no fun.”

Merlin smiled at his friends, “anyways. Arthur, I just remember that you were talking to me about some language I am teaching Morgana.”

Morgana spit out her drink and Gwen covered her mouth. Merlin and Arthur looked at them confusedly. 

Arthur coughed, “yes, I realized that I might have been mistaken. My ears were probably just hearing things, truth be told.”

“In that case I should bring you to Gaius, just to make sure nothing is wrong with you,” Merlin said. “Though truth be told, I think we should’ve done this long ago.”

Arthur gave a small smile. He hadn’t seen Merlin very much this week, and walking to Gaius to get him checked out would give him an excuse to spend time with his manservant. “As long as it doesn’t take too long,” Arthur responded, and hopped up from his chair, following Merlin to his chambers, and leaving behind a shell-shocked Morgana and Gwen.

“How could he not know what Arthur was talking about?” Gwen murmured.

Morgana stared open mouthed at the place her brother and mentor had been standing only seconds ago. “Dear god, they’re both oblivious.”

The rest of the day went by smoothly. A more composed Morgana and Gwen brought the contract to seal their courtship later that day and Arthur managed to stop Lancelot from breaking Gwaine’s neck after he dyed his armor an odd shade of purple.

Throughout the day Arthur would mumble out some of the words he had learned the previous night, just so he would not forget them. A couple servants gave him shocked and confused looks when he said the words, and one even came up to him and thanked him. Arthur was confused when she did that, but then realized there were more people speaking this language then he originally thought.

Weeks went by and Arthur thought he had actually become well versed in this new language. So, he called his closest knights, Morgana, Gwen, and of course Merlin, to come and join him at the round table.

“What is this for, Arthur?” Gwaine asked. “I have importants tasks I need to do.”

“And by tasks he means stealing more food from the kitchen,” Lancelot supplied.

Arthur rolled his eyes at his knights. “I have something very important to tell you all. I have been learning a new language!”

Gwen closed her eyes and let out a small breath, already remembering the conversation from a few weeks ago.

“That’s great, Arthur,” Merlin said. “Would you like us all to parade around you with songs and dancing?”

Arthur glared at Merlin, who didn’t even flinch. “You should be more grateful, Merlin! I’ve been learning this language so you could feel more accepted.”

“You learned an entire language for Merlin?” Elyan asked.

Arthur nodded, ignoring the amused looks he was getting. “I am sure I still have much to learn, but allow me to show you what I have learned so far.” The minute the first word was out of Arthur’s mouth, Merlin seemed to be on the verge of fainting.

The knights all looked at Merlin confusedly. 

“He knows?” Lancelot asked Merlin.

“Wait, what do you mean he knows?” Percival said. “You know?”

“I was not aware the two of you knew as well,” Gwaine said, astonished.

“Just to be clear, we’re talking about magic, right?” Elyan asked for confirmation.

All the knights looked to Leon who just sighed and shrugged. “Before you all ask if I knew, of course I knew! He used magic his first day here, it was harder to not figure it out then it was to know.”

“Wait,” Arthur said. “Magic?”

Leon nodded. “Yes, sire. The words you just said were part of a spell I believe. I’ve heard Morgana and Merlin use it quite a couple times.”

Morgana’s palm hit her face while Merlin’s body hit the floor.


End file.
